Tricks of the trade

If you get a stitch doing sport, does it mean you're unfit?Not at all. Just before I won gold at the Olympics, I used to get stitches during training all the time and I still do now. I'm sure Paula Radcliffe does too, but she just runs through it. They never last more than a couple of minutes, after all. I run with a lot of the mums in our village and they're always suffering. It's usually just because they've eaten too close to when they set off. One woman has a chocolate bar literally five minutes before she goes running, thinking she needs the energy, but that's the absolute worst thing to do. The other problem is not breathing properly. Make sure you inhale and exhale regularly. What some people do is they'll hold their breath: a terrible idea. They should relax and do a couple of deep breaths. It doesn't matter whether you inhale through your nose and out through your mouth or the other way round - I'm a real mouth-breather fullstop, in and out. Some people dig their hand under their ribcage where the hurt is. It might feel a natural thing to do, but in my experience you won't feel any better. Just grit your teeth, breathe deeply and evenly and it will pass. If it doesn't, stop.

About this article

Tricks of the trade

This article appeared on p27 of the G2 section of the Guardian
on Wednesday 14 September 2005.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 11.25 EDT on Thursday 15 September 2005.
It was last modified at 11.25 EST on Thursday 3 November 2005.
It was first published at 11.25 EST on Thursday 3 November 2005.